Universal Rhythm

U.S. War in Iraq Declared Officially Over
By THOM SHANKER and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
Published: December 15, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/middleeast/panetta-in-baghdad-for-iraq-military-handover-ceremony.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all
 

BAGHDAD — The United States military officially declared an end to its mission in Iraq on Thursday even as violence continues to plague the country and the Muslim world remains distrustful of American power.

In a fortified concrete courtyard at the airport in Baghdad, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta thanked the more than one million American service members who have served in Iraq for “the remarkable progress” made over the past nine years but acknowledged the severe challenges that face the struggling democracy.

“Let me be clear: Iraq will be tested in the days ahead — by terrorism, and by those who would seek to divide, by economic and social issues, by the demands of democracy itself,” Mr. Panetta said. “Challenges remain, but the U.S. will be there to stand by the Iraqi people as they navigate those challenges to build a stronger and more prosperous nation.”

The muted ceremony stood in contrast to the start of the war in 2003 when an America both frightened and emboldened by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, sent columns of tanks north from Kuwait to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

As of last Friday, the war in Iraq had claimed 4,487 American lives, with another 32,226 Americans wounded in action, according to Pentagon statistics.

The tenor of the hour-long farewell ceremony, officially called “Casing the Colors,” was likely to sound an uncertain trumpet for a war that was started to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction it did not have. It now ends without the sizable, enduring American military presence for which many military officers had hoped.

Although Thursday’s ceremony marked the end of the war, the military still has two bases in Iraq and roughly 4,000 troops, including several hundred who attended the ceremony. At the height of the war in 2007, there were 505 bases and more than 170,000 troops.

According to military officials, the remaining troops are still being attacked on a daily basis, mainly by indirect fire attacks on the bases and road side bomb explosions against convoys heading south through Iraq to bases in Kuwait.

Even after the last two bases are closed and the final American combat troops withdraw from Iraq by Dec. 31, under rules of an agreement with the government in Baghdad, a few hundred military personnel and Pentagon civilians will remain, working within the American Embassy as part of an Office of Security Cooperation to assist in arms sales and training.

But negotiations could resume next year on whether additional American military personnel can return to further assist their Iraqi counterparts.

Senior American military officers have made no secret that they see crucial gaps in Iraq’s ability to defend its sovereign soil and even to secure its oil platforms offshore in the Persian Gulf. Air defenses are seen as a critical gap in Iraqi capabilities, but American military officers also see significant shortcomings in Iraq’s ability to sustain a military, whether moving food and fuel or servicing the armored vehicles it is inheriting from Americans or the fighter jets it is buying, and has shortfalls in military engineers, artillery and intelligence, as well.

“From a standpoint of being able to defend against an external threat, they have very limited to little capability, quite frankly,” Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the outgoing American commander in Iraq, said in an interview after the ceremony. “In order to defend against a determined enemy, they will need to do some work.”

The tenuous security atmosphere in Iraq was underscored by helicopters that hovered over the ceremony, scanning the ground for rocket attacks. Although there is far less violence across Iraq than at the height of the sectarian conflict in 2006 and 2007, there are bombings on a nearly daily basis and Americans remain a target of Shiite militants.

Mr. Panetta acknowledged that “the cost was high — in blood and treasure of the United States, and also for the Iraqi people. But those lives have not been lost in vain — they gave birth to an independent, free and sovereign Iraq.”

The war was started by the Bush administration in March 2003 on arguments that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and had ties to Al Qaeda that might grow to an alliance threatening the United States with a mass-casualty terrorist attack.

As the absence of unconventional weapons proved a humiliation for the administration and the intelligence community, the war effort was reframed as being about bringing democracy to the Middle East.

And, indeed, there was euphoria among many Iraqis at an American-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. But the support soon soured amid a growing sense of heavy-handed occupation fueled by the unleashing of bloody sectarian and religious rivalries. The American presence also proved a magnet for militant fighters and an Al Qaeda-affiliated group took root among the Sunni minority population in Iraq.

While the terrorist group has been rendered ineffective by a punishing series of Special Operations raids that have killed or captured several Qaeda leaders, intelligence specialists fear that it is in resurgence. The American military presence in Iraq, viewed as an occupation across the Muslim world, also hampered Washington’s ability to cast a narrative from the United States in support of the Arab Spring uprisings this year.

Even handing bases over to the Iraqi government over recent months proved vexing for the military. In the spring, commanders halted large formal ceremonies with Iraqi officials for base closings because insurgents were using the events as opportunities to attack troops. “We were having ceremonies and announcing it publicly and having a little formal process but a couple of days before the base was to close we would start to receive significant indirect fire attacks on the location,” said Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the military in Iraq. “We were suffering attacks so we stopped.”

Across the country, the closing of bases has been marked by a quiet closed-door meeting where American and Iraqi military officials signed documents that legally gave the Iraqis control of the bases, exchanged handshakes and turned over keys.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey of the Army, has served two command tours in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, and he noted during the ceremony that the next time he comes to Iraq he will have to be invited.

“We will stand with you against terrorists and others that threaten to undo what we have accomplished together,” General Dempsey said during the ceremony. “We will work with you to secure our common interests in a more peaceful and prosperous region.”

NOTE: from U.R.

An end to an unjust and disgraceful war - while America slipped into a deeper and deeper economic downturn to a straight out recession heading for depression - trillions of dollars were spent in the Iraq war - yes this is where our tax dollars went - it did not go to schools,, housing, or health care… read between the lines — the following are some quotes based on the closing of the Iraq war proves what a farce it really was… what about the 911 ??? and what about Afghanistan — why are we still there???

“As of last Friday, the war in Iraq had claimed 4,487 American lives, with another 32,226 Americans wounded in action, according to Pentagon statistics.”

(No mention of the loss of lives of the Iraqi people…)

“More than one million American service members who have served in Iraq”

“At the height of the war in 2007, there were 505 bases and more than 170,000 troops.”

“The war was started by the Bush administration in March 2003 on arguments that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction”

“For a war that was started to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction it did not have.”

“As the absence of unconventional weapons proved a humiliation for the administration and the intelligence community, the war effort was reframed as being about bringing democracy to the Middle East.”

“Senior American military officers have made no secret that they see crucial gaps in Iraq’s ability to defend its sovereign soil and even to secure its oil platforms offshore in the Persian Gulf”

“A few hundred military personnel and Pentagon civilians will remain”

New laws protect women from abuse in Pakistan
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9419828-new-laws-protect-women-from-abuse-in-pakistan

By MUNIR AHMED, SEBASTIAN ABBOT, The Associated Press

ISLAMABAD — Azim Mai’s husband allegedly threw acid in her face last year after she refused to sell their two boys to a man in Dubai to use as camel racers. The 35-year-old mother of five can no longer find work as a maid because her deeply scarred face scares potential employers.

Acid burnings are among the most horrific crimes against women in Pakistan that are now criminalized in a landmark set of laws passed by the parliament. They stand to protect millions of women from common forms of abuse in a conservative, Muslim country with a terrible history of gender inequality.
——————————————————————————–

Rights activists praised the laws Tuesday while stressing their passage was just the first step, and likely not the hardest one. It could be even more difficult to get Pakistan’s corrupt and inefficient legal system to protect women’s rights that many men in this patriarchal society likely oppose.

“This is a big achievement for the women of Pakistan, civil society and the organizations that have been working for more than 30 years to get women friendly bills passed,” said Nayyar Shabana Kiyani, who has lobbied for the legislation as part of The Aurat Foundation, a women’s rights group.

“We can’t really get good results until the laws are implemented at the grassroots level,” she added.

The two bills containing the new laws, which received final approval from the Senate on Monday, stiffened the punishment for acid attacks and criminalized practices such as marrying off young girls to settle tribal disputes and preventing women from inheriting property.

Mistreatment of women is widespread in Pakistan, a nation of some 175 million where most people are poor, only half the adults can read and extremist ideologies, including the Taliban’s, are gaining traction.

In 2010, at least 8,000 acid attacks, forced marriages and other forms of violence against women were reported, according to The Aurat Foundation. Because the group relied mostly on media reports, the figure is likely an undercount.

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Women are discriminated against in other ways as well. Pakistan ranked third to last in 2011 in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, only beating Chad and Yemen. The report captures the magnitude of gender-based disparities in things like health and education.

The new laws explicitly criminalized acid attacks and mandated that convicted attackers would serve a minimum sentence of 14 years that could extend to life, and pay a minimum fine of about $11,200.

Other new laws mandate a minimum prison sentence of three years for forcing a woman to marry, including to settle tribal disputes; five years for preventing a woman from inheriting property; and three years for a practice known as “marriage to the Holy Quran.”

Feudal families in rural areas of Pakistan engage in this practice so that women won’t receive marriage proposals and their share of the inheritance will stay in the family, said Farzana Bari, head of the gender studies department at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.

“This legislation addresses the patriarchal traditions that have been used against women to violate their rights,” said Bari. “People have been doing these kinds of things for so long that they don’t even think it’s unjust.

Past bills aimed at protecting women have met resistance from Islamists and other conservatives in parliament. But the latest measures were passed unanimously by both the Senate and the National Assembly and will go into effect once the president signs them.

Mai, the acid attack victim who also has three daughters, was happy with the passage of the laws but favored even harsher punishment, including for her husband, who she said was in jail awaiting trial. The couple was living in Rahim Yar Khan, a very conservative city in Punjab province, when he attacked her for refusing to sell their children, she said. Many South Asian children have been trafficked to the Gulf to work as camel racers.

“I lost my job, I lost my face, and I have been facing hunger and poverty,” Mai said during an interview at the offices of the Acid Survivors Foundation, a charity in Islamabad treating acid attack victims. “I am happy over the passage of this bill, but I will only be satisfied when authorities throw acid in the face of my husband.”

Previously, victims had to prosecute attacks as attempted murder or disfigurement and were largely unsuccessful, said Valerie Khan, head of the Acid Survivors Foundation.

“This is a clear message that impunity will not exist anymore,” said Khan. “It’s a strong deterrent message.”

Activists said it will take more work to change people’s attitudes and get the laws implemented, but they were prepared.

“It might take another 10 to 20 years to change society’s mindset and public will,” said Kiyani from The Aurat Foundation. “That’s a challenge for both the government and civil society.”

For Afghan Woman, Justice Runs Into Unforgiving Wall of Custom
www.nytimes.com…
Mohammad Ismail/Reuters
A United Nations mission found that acts of violence against women are seldom prosecuted in Afghanistan, despite existing laws.
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Published: December 1, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — When the Afghan government announced Thursday that it would pardon a woman who had been imprisoned for adultery after she reported that she had been raped, the decision seemed a clear victory for the many women here whose lives have been ground down by the Afghan justice system.

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan offered his thoughts on an abused woman’s case.
But when the announcement also made it clear that there was an expectation that the woman, Gulnaz, would agree to marry the man who raped her, the moment instead revealed the ways in which even efforts guided by the best intentions to redress violence against women here run up against the limits of change in a society where cultural practices are so powerful that few can resist them, not even the president.

The solution holds grave risks for Gulnaz, who uses one name, since the man could be so humiliated that he might kill his accuser, despite the risk of prosecution, or abuse her again.

The decision from the government of President Hamid Karzai is all the more poignant coming as Western forces prepare to leave Afghanistan, underscoring the unfinished business of advancing women’s rights here, and raising questions of what will happen in the future to other women like Gulnaz.

Indeed, what prompted the government to act at all was a grass-roots movement that began after Gulnaz was featured in a recent documentary film commissioned by the European Union, which then blocked the film’s release.

Supporters of the filmmakers charged that European officials were shying away from exposing the sort of abuses Afghan women routinely suffer for fear of offending their host government.

While Gulnaz’s pardon is a victory for both Clementine Malpas, a filmmaker who spent nearly six months on the documentary, and for Kimberley Motley, an American lawyer here who took Gulnaz’s case on a pro bono basis, it also shows that for women in the justice system, the odds are stacked against them.

The banned film, “In-Justice: The Story of Afghan Women in Jail,” which was seen by The New York Times, profiles three Afghan women who were in prison. One was Gulnaz, then about 19, who gave birth to the child of her rapist in prison, after initially being sentenced to three years. In a second trial, her sentence was increased to 12 years, but a judge on camera offered her a way out: marry her rapist.

A second woman in the film was abused by her husband and ran away with a man she fell in love with; both are now in prison for adultery. The third woman was a child of 14, who appeared to have been kidnapped but was held as a runaway and has since been returned to her family.

After the film was completed, the European Union banned its release, effectively silencing the women who were willing to tell their stories. The reason given for the ban was that the publicity could harm the women, because an Afghan woman who has had sex out of wedlock can easily become the victim of a so-called honor killing. The women had not given their written consent to be in the film, said Vygaudas Usackas, the European Union’s ambassador to Afghanistan.

But an e-mail obtained by The Times from someone supportive of the filmmakers suggested that the European Union also had political reasons for the ban.

The e-mail addressed to the filmmakers by the European Union attaché for justice, the rule of law and human rights, Zoe Leffler, said the European Union “also has to consider its relations with the justice institutions in connection with the other work that it is doing in the sector.”

Even if the women in the film “were to give their full consent,” the European Union would not be “ willing to take responsibility for the events that could ensue and that could threaten the lives of the documentary’s subjects,” the e-mail said.

Mr. Usackas said that concern for the women was central in the European Union’s decision. “Not only does the E.U. care about women, but we have spent over 45 million euros,” about $60 million, “in support of different programs for women,” he said, adding that the European Union also finances shelters for women.

Word of the film’s suppression percolated through human rights groups here to the point that many in the nascent Afghan women’s movement were referring to the victims by name and discussing what would be best for them, given the strictures of Afghan society. Some people circulated a petition urging Gulnaz’s release and gathered more than 6,000 signatures, which were delivered to Mr. Karzai.

Although human rights advocates came down emphatically on the side of broadcasting the documentary, Afghan women’s advocates were more cautious, having been stung by previous cases.

In 2010, there was widespread publicity of the case of Bibi Aisha, a Pashtun child bride, whose nose was cut off by her Taliban husband; it backfired. Conservative Afghan leaders started a campaign against the nonprofit women’s shelters, one of which had helped Bibi Aisha. They came close to shutting down the shelters, which would have been a huge loss for abused women who have no other refuge.

“When we write or produce articles or movies on Afghan women, no matter how horrible the life of Afghan women is, and we know that is the reality of Afghan women, we want to be very careful not to make the situation worse,” said Samira Hamidi, country director of the Afghan Women’s Network.

“We don’t want to block the way for other women who have similar problems and who don’t have anyone to help them,” Ms. Hamidi said.

But to not show the plight of Afghan women is to reduce the possibility that the government and the society will ever change.

“It is our position in the human rights community that one of the best ways to highlight a human rights issue is to let the victims speak and to publicize what has happened to them to a wide audience,” said Georgette Gagnon, an official with the United Nations mission in Afghanistan.

The problem for Gulnaz and the other women in the film is the deeply held belief that women uphold their family’s honor. Thus any attempt to expose abuse is so humiliating to the family that a woman who speaks out often becomes a pariah among her relatives, ending up isolated as well as abused.

Gulnaz’s case shows the power of cultural norms. On the one hand, the public campaign for the woman prompted the pardon, which ensures that she will be able to bring up her daughter outside prison. On the other hand, the fact that the only imaginable solution to the situation of a woman with an illegitimate child is to have her marry the father — even if he is a rapist — is testament to the rigid belief here that a woman is respectable only if she is embedded within a family.

Ms. Malpas said that Gulnaz talked to her about why she felt that she had to give in to requests that she marry the man who raped her, even though she did not want to, explaining that not only would she be an outcast if she did not, but so would her daughter, and she would bring shame on her family.

“Gulnaz said, ‘My rapist has destroyed my future,’ ” Ms. Malpas said, recounting their conversation. “ ‘No one will marry me after what he has done to me. So I must marry my rapist for my child’s sake. I don’t want people to call her a bastard and abuse my brothers. My brothers won’t have honor in our society until he marries me.’ ”

But, mindful of her safety, Gulnaz also said that if she were to marry her rapist she would demand that he make one of his sisters marry one of her brothers, Ms. Motley, the lawyer, said.

This practice, known as “baad,” is a tribal way of settling disputes. But in this case it would also be an insurance policy for Gulnaz since her rapist would hesitate to hurt her because his sister would be at the mercy of Gulnaz’s brother.

Both Ms. Malpas and Ms. Motley said that a shelter had been found for Gulnaz and that they hoped she would go there. But whether such a Western option can prevail over Afghan custom — and whether Gulnaz will choose it — is far from clear.

Sangar Rahimi and Rod Nordland contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on December 2, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: For Afghan Woman, Justice Runs Into Unforgiving Wall of Custom..

Tijuana Journal
Raids Don’t Keep Tunnel City From Humming Underground
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
The authorities on Thursday presented the results of a raid in Tijuana: bricks of marijuana and a smuggling tunnel into California.
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: December 1, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/world/americas/despite-raids-tijuana-tunnels-keep-humming-underground.html?_r=1&hp

nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines.
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
A motorized cart on metal rails ensured quick passage.
The tunnel ran for almost half a mile, with wooden planks holding off the earth on all sides. Energy-saving light bulbs illuminated the route. A motorized cart on metal rails ensured quick passage, while a steel elevator hidden beneath the floor tiles in a warehouse made the 40-foot descent to the tunnel’s entrance feel like the slow drop into an unregulated mine shaft.

And yet, here is the simple fact obscured by superlatives like “the most elaborate” and “the most sophisticated,” which officials seem to lather on each new find.

Tunnels are Tijuana. They have become an inevitable, always-under-construction or always-operating part of city life, as entrenched as cheap pharmacies and strip clubs.

Residents now shrug them off. “If you have a lot of money, you can do anything,” said Blanca Samaniego, 36, as she walked by the warehouse where Mexican officials unveiled the tunnel on Wednesday. “It will never change. It will never stop.”

The ground beneath her neighborhood in the hills — near the airport and the upgraded, shimmering border fence patrolled 24/7 by American agents — has been punched full of holes for years. Almost every kind of building has been used to hide a logistical operation that is as much about the American taste for a high as it is about the low-down removal of dirt.

Just a few weeks ago, below a more rudimentary warehouse nearby, the authorities found a different tunnel with an elaborate ventilation system. A few blocks from that, there sits an empty flophouse, where thick concrete now caps a passageway discovered by the authorities last year. Farther east, residents note a tunnel found in 2008, and just past the next major intersection, there are two more: one under a small home and the other below a bodega across from a factory.

Other tunnels have been found downtown, near the main border crossing. Wherever there is a border fence climbing high, there seems to have been an attempt to burrow below, usually to a parking lot in California where drugs can be hauled through a manhole cover, or to a business that almost looks legitimate.

In the latest case, the tunnel ran to Hernandez Produce Warehouse, a fruit and vegetable company in California whose only product seemed to be green and best when smoked.

Luis Ituarte, 69, an artist who runs a gallery here called La Casa del Túnel — where a tunnel was found about decade ago — said that Tijuana officials would be smart to move beyond publicizing their subterranean finds and then shutting them down. He argued that Tijuana should capitalize on its historic identity as a city that has been serving up vice since 1907, when President Porfirio Díaz legalized gambling, or 1920, when the United States made alcohol illegal.

“Las Vegas, Tijuana and Havana were all built by the same kind of people,” Mr. Ituarte said. “Only Vegas has taken on its bad reputation.”

Not that this is the direction things are heading. The mayor here recently rejected demands from cultural groups asking to take over La Ocho, a notorious prison that had been decommissioned.

Mexican Army officials, during a tour of this week’s elaborate tunnel, mostly focused on the triumph of the discovery.

“These are achievements that increase public security,” said Gen. Gilberto Landeros, standing at the tunnel entrance as local reporters took snapshots of one another in front of the long, dim hole. “We’re pounding at the economy of narcotrafficking.”

At the very least, he had a lot of marijuana to point to. Hefty bricks of the stuff, wrapped tightly in orange and green plastic, surrounded him when he announced the discovery of the tunnel inside the empty warehouse here in Tijuana. The total haul, from both sides and a truck driven from the site in San Diego, was 32.4 tons, with a street value of about $65 million — a new record for a tunnel-related seizure, according to American officials.

Harder to see, unmentioned, but easy to imagine: how many tons moved across before that load was found.

The evidence around the tunnel — worn-out soccer cleats, dusty oscillating fans, empty water bottles — suggested that the operation had been going for months, a supposition Mexican officials did not deny. At that rate, hundreds of tons of marijuana worth hundreds of millions of dollars would have moved through this one tunnel during its life span.

Most likely somewhere nearby, in another tunnel, the flow continues. The next announcement and news tour may be only weeks away.

A version of this article appeared in print on December 2, 2011, on page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: Raids Don’t Keep Tunnel City From Humming Underground..

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-12-01/politics/politics_senate-detainee-policy_1_defense-bill-senate-debate-senate-amendment?_s=PM%3APOLITICS  

Senate passes defense bill with detainee policy compromise
LAW ENFORCEMENT 
December 01, 2011|By Ted Barrett, CNN
 

Senate Armed Services leaders Carl Levin, left, and John McCain agreed to a compromise on detention of U.S. citizens.The Senate on Thursday passed a giant defense bill that includes a new policy for detaining and trying suspected al Qaeda terrorists — a policy that attracted controversy during the debate and may draw a presidential veto.

The defense authorization bill passed by a vote of 93-7.

In keeping with budget cuts across the government, the $662 billion bill shrinks Pentagon spending by $43 billion from last year. It includes funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and sets policies for the various weapons systems and personnel programs at the Defense Department.

Senate debate on the detainee matter was at times volatile and emotional.

After years of struggling with issues of who should investigate, detain and try suspected terrorists — civilian authorities and courts or the military and its tribunal system — Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and ranking Republican John McCain of Arizona reached a long-sought compromise to codify the process.

However, critics complained the deal was weighted toward the military because it required any suspected al Qaeda terrorists, even those captured inside the U.S., to be held potentially indefinitely by the military. That concerned the White House and many lawmakers who think the responsibility belongs, in part, to law enforcement agencies and the federal courts and warned that Americans could possibly be detained indefinitely by the military.

Levin and McCain denied their bill would allow for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens.

“This country is special because we have certain values, and due process of law is one of those values,” Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-California, argued on the Senate floor. “I object to holding American citizens without trial. I do not believe that makes us more safe.”

“You have people on the left who hate saying ‘the war on terror,’” responded Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina. “They would never ever use the military and always insist the law enforcement be used because they don’t buy into the idea that we’re at war. They want to criminalize the war.”

Senators ultimately reached an agreement to amend the bill to make clear it’s not the bill’s intent to allow for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens and others legally residing in the country.

“It would provide the assurance that we are not adversely affecting the rights of American citizens in this language,” Levin said while expressing support for the compromise.
 

Senate keeps controversial detainee policy in defense bill
By Stephanie (Credit: CBS/AP)

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57333243-503544/senate-keeps-controversial-detainee-policy-in-defense-bill/

Senate keeps controversial detainee policy in defense bill
By Stephanie (Credit: CBS/AP)
The Senate on Tuesday voted to keep a controversial provision regarding military detainees in a Defense spending bill, setting up a showdown with President Obama.
The controversial language in question would require the military to detain terrorist suspects, including U.S. citizens, allowing for their indefinite detention. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., led an effort to remove the language and provide more room for study on the issue, but his amendment was rejected by a vote of 37 in favor to 61 against.
President Obama has promised to veto the Defense bill if it includes the controversial provision, with his administration arguing that applying the new rules within the U.S. would challenge the “fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets.”
The vote indicates the fight over the provision isn’t over — its supporters did not garner enough votes today to override the president’s veto.
In spite of the president’s protests, the provision’s supporters — primarily the leaders of the Senate Armed Committee, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Carl Levin, D-Mich. — argue the measure would simply put into law a counterterrorism system already in place, codifying rules that are currently based on court decisions and executive orders.
“We’re trying to provide tools and clarity that have been missing for 10 years,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on the Senate floor in defense of the provision. Arguing that suspected al Qaeda allies shouldn’t be treated as criminal defendants, he told his Senate colleagues, “This is your chance to speak on the central issue after the attacks 9/11: Are we at war, or are we fighting a crime?”
Udall’s amendment would have removed that aspect of the Defense bill, instead requiring various officials to issue a joint report detailing gaps in current detention policy. After the report was released, Congress could once again take up the issue.
“This is a debate we need to have, it’s a healthy debate,” Udall said today, “but we ought to be armed with all the facts… before we move forward.”
Citing the objections to the provision from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and FBI Director Robert Mueller, Udall continued, “It concerns me we would tell our national security leadership… that Congress knows better than they do… What I am asking is to listen to those who are on the front lines of fighting terrorists.”
Specifically, the provision in question would require al Qaeda terrorists to be held in military custody. However, it would allow the administration, through a waiver, to choose to hold a detainee in civilian custody. The administration would also decide who would fall under the new rule.
Udall argued in a Washington Post op-ed today that it would give the military “unprecedented power on U.S. soil” and interfere with the progress the FBI has made working with state and local law enforcement officials to prevent terrorism.
Debate over the provision did not exactly fall down partisan lines. Sixteen Democrats, as well as independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, joined Republicans in voting against Udall’s amendment. Two Republicans — Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mark Kirk of Illinois — joined the rest of the Democrats in supporting it.
Paul said that “detaining American citizens without a court trial is not American.”
Levin, meanwhile, quoted the Supreme Court, which said in 2004, “There is no bar to this nation’s holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant.”
Al Qaeda “brought this war to us, and if it’s determined that even an American citizen is a member of al Qaeda, then you can apply the law of war, according to the Supreme Court,” he said.

more links to check out on this topic

http://www.freedomfiles.org/war/fema.htm

http://www.ksat.com/news/nationalnews/Senate-passes-detainee-policy-compromise/-/478364/4860588/-/s0n2gi/-/index.html

Eyeing China, U.S. Expands Military Ties to Australia
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/world/asia/obama-and-gillard-expand-us-australia-military-ties.html?_r=1&hp

CANBERRA, Australia — President Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia announced plans on Wednesday for the first sustained American military presence in Australia, a relatively small deployment that is still a major symbol of American intentions to use regional alliances to counterbalance a rising China.

“With my visit to the region I am making it clear that the United States is stepping up its commitment to the entire Asia-Pacific region,” Mr. Obama said at a joint news conference with Ms. Gillard soon after his arrival here in Australia’s capital.

Mr. Obama said the basing agreement “allows us to meet the demands of a lot of partners in the region that want to feel that they’re getting the training, they’re getting the exercises, and that we have the presence that’s necessary to maintain the security architecture in the region.”

“But the second message I’m trying to send is that we are here to stay,” Mr. Obama said. “This is a region of huge strategic importance to us.” He added: “Even as we make a whole host of important fiscal decisions back home, this is right up there at the top of my priority list. And we’re going to make sure that we are able to fulfill our leadership role in the Asia Pacific region.”

On his two-day visit, the president will fly north across the continent to Darwin, a frontier town and military outpost across the waters from Indonesia that will be the center of operations for the coming deployment. The first 200 to 250 Marines will arrive next year, with forces rotating in and out and eventually building to 2,500-strong, the two leaders said.

The United States will not build new bases on the continent but instead will use Australian facilities. Mr. Obama said Marines will rotate through for joint training and exercises with Australians and the American Air Force will have increased access to airfields in the nation’s Northern Territory.

“We’re going to be in a position to more effectively strengthen the security of both of our nations and this region,” he said.

Since World War II, the United States has had military bases and much larger forces in Japan and South Korea, in the north Pacific, but the arrangement with Australia will put an American footprint closer to the southern reaches of the South China Sea. The sea, a major commercial route — including for American exports — has been roiled by China’s aggressive claims of control.

Like Australia, China’s neighbors in Southeast Asia have looked to the United States to increase its military presence as a counterweight to Beijing. Mr. Obama has sought to provide that assurance, but the Asia-Pacific allies are well aware of the intense pressure for budget-cutting in Washington, and fear that squeezed military spending and other factors may inhibit Mr. Obama’s ability to follow through.

The United States and other Pacific Rim nations are also negotiating for a free-trade bloc that does not include China, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The tentative trade agreement was a topic over the weekend in Honolulu, where Mr. Obama hosted the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, and it will be discussed again later this week when he becomes the first American president to participate in the East Asia Summit, on Indonesia’s island of Bali.

For China, the week’s developments could suggest both an economic and military encirclement. For the United States and its Pacific Rim allies, they suggest a growing concern over China’s muscle.

But Mr. Obama said, “The notion that we fear China is mistaken. The notion that we are looking to exclude China is mistaken.”

The president said China would be welcomed into the tentative Trans-Pacific Partnership — nine nations, including the United States, agreed in Honolulu to finalize a framework in 2012 — if it is willing to meet the free-trade standards for membership. Such standards would require China to let its currency rise in value, better protect foreign producers’ intellectual property rights and limit or end subsidies to state-owned companies.

Mr. Obama arrived in Australia for his first visit as president after twice cancelling trips due to domestic demands; he recalled at a state dinner that he had visited twice as a boy, when his mother was working in Indonesia on development programs.

This time, as president, Mr. Obama arrived at Parliament House to a 21-gun salute and, once inside, to the enthusiastic greeting of Australians crowding the galleries of the massive marble entrance hall.

The two countries have long been allies and another purpose of Mr. Obama’s visit is to celebrate their alliance’s 60th anniversary. “The United States has no stronger ally,” Mr. Obama said.

Australians fought with the United States in every war of the 20th century, and more recently have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan has become increasingly unpopular with most Australians want their troops to come home immediately.

Domestic Workers Convention May Be Landmark

www.nytimes.com…

By JASON DePARLE
Published: October 8, 2011

Mast Irham/European Pressphoto Agency
Indonesian workers preparing to leave for Saudi Arabia.
Even countries that fail to ratify the pact will eventually be judged by its standards, they said, and the campaign to pass it had enlisted fresh allies, newly mindful of abuses from unpaid wages to rape.

Two days later, Saudi Arabia, a major destination for domestic workers, beheaded an Indonesian maid — at once highlighting the need for protections and the challenges of putting them in place.

The execution followed reports from maids who said their Saudi bosses had burned or beaten them, and the condemned woman, who killed her employer, said she had been abused. But when the Indonesian president protested, the Saudis stopped hiring Indonesians and pointedly turned to cheaper workers from countries less likely to complain.

The twin developments — accord in Geneva and maid wars in Riyadh — show opposing forces in a global campaign to protect domestic workers, an overlooked group of as many as 100 million people.

More broadly, that campaign tests the effort to raise work standards in a world of cheap and mobile labor. Many domestic workers are migrants, and the precedents could shape the treatment of other migrant groups. On Sept. 30, for example, Hong Kong’s High Court struck down a law that had excluded domestic workers from the residency rights offered to other foreign citizens, potentially allowing 100,000 maids to gain the right to stay.

The events show that “officials have not forgotten about migrant workers,” said Philip Martin, an economist at the University of California, Davis. “But they are also a reminder of the difficulties of extending effective protections to them.”

“The receiving countries can always say, ‘We will get workers somewhere else,’ ” he said.

While acknowledging such challenges, the treaty’s supporters say that it establishes vital new principles and that it will accelerate changes already under way. Before the pact was approved, Singapore, Jordan and New York State had passed new laws, and proposals are being considered in places as different as California and Kuwait. Even Saudi Arabia, a source of frequent abuse complaints, is considering changes that officials may feel more inclined to accept after voting for the pact.

“The treaty was a watershed event,” said Nisha Varia, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “There is now a global consensus that these women deserve the same rights as other workers. All the governments involved in this conversation will be under pressure to examine their labor laws.”

As a labor force composed mostly of women who work behind closed doors, domestic workers are hard to organize and vulnerable to attack. Many countries exclude them from labor laws, leaving no legal boundaries on their hours or pay.

In the United States, domestic workers are covered by minimum-wage laws, but they are excluded from federal statutes on occupational health, overtime and the right to organize.

As long ago as 1965, the International Labor Organization, a branch of the United Nations, saw an “urgent need” to protect domestic workers, whom it called “singularly subject to exploitation.” But interest in formal action waned, and women flooded the workplace, making nannies and maids a cornerstone of modern economies.

The export of domestic workers became big business in migration hubs like Indonesia and the Philippines, where more than half the migrants are women. Both countries celebrate the sums the women send home and simmer at the stories of mistreatment that percolate in the news media.

Saudi Arabia is a prime destination for both countries. In 2008, a study by Ms. Varia cited dozens of cases that amounted “to forced labor, trafficking, or slavery-like conditions.” While abuses occur everywhere, the report said, Saudi Arabia prosecuted few cases and sometimes allowed bosses to pursue retaliatory charges, like theft, against victims who complained.

A spokesman for the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington declined to comment. In the past, Saudi officials have accused critics of exaggerating isolated cases of abuse, and noted that legions of women still seek the jobs.

When the international labor group turned to domestic workers in 2010, Persian Gulf states, speaking as a bloc, called for nonbinding recommendations. In a reversal this year, they supported a binding treaty.

What is more, they strengthened it, with calls for stronger language on contract rights, overtime pay and access to courts during employer conflicts.

“It really made an impression,” said Ellene Sana of the Center for Migrant Advocacy in Manila. “When you think of abuses, you think of the gulf — yet here they are, standing up for domestic workers.”

Pressure from the Arab Spring, Ms. Sana said, may help explain the change. Others note that the rotating leadership of the bloc passed to the United Arab Emirates, which is conscious of the region’s global reputation.

Of the 128 governments that voted, only Swaziland opposed the pact, which says domestic workers should enjoy rights equivalent to those given to other workers in the same country, including limited workweeks, overtime pay and paid vacations.

While the United States pushed hard for the pact, the Senate rarely approves labor treaties that would require changes in federal law, as this one would if ratified. Legally the pact applies only in countries that ratify it, but its uses as a yardstick may be broader.

Even as support for the treaty grew, so did reports of abuse in Saudi Arabia. Keni binti Carda, an Indonesian maid, went home in 2008 with scars spread across her back and face. She said her employer burned her with an iron and forced her to eat excrement.

A Sri Lankan maid, L. D. Ariyawathie, arrived home last year with two dozen nails in her body — hammered there, she said, by her employer.

After an Indonesian woman, Sumiati binti Salan Mustapa, was hospitalized in Medina last year with broken bones and a mutilated face, the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, condemned her “extraordinary torture.” But the conviction of her employer was overturned.

On June 18, two days after the Geneva vote, Saudi Arabia beheaded an Indonesian named Ruyati binti Sapubi. Mr. Yudhoyono denounced Saudi “norms and manners,” and the Saudis stopped admitting new Indonesian maids.

They had already placed a similar ban on the Philippines, after several Philippine lawmakers visited in January and wrote they were “shocked into speechlessness by the tales of rape and abuse.” Saudi recruiters then described plans to hire thousands of Bangladeshis at wages of $170 a month, less than half what the Philippine government demanded.

More battles may be pending. Under a new law, the Philippine government must identify which countries are acceptable destinations for domestic workers, which could prompt more conflicts like the one with the Saudis.

Still, Philippine officials say the treaty, by laying out common principles, has given them a new weapon in an old fight.

It is “a landmark accomplishment,” said Carlos Cao Jr., who runs the Philippine government’s overseas work program. “But you don’t change cultures overnight.”

Protesters Against Wall Street - Published: October 8, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/protesters-against-wall-street.html?scp=9&sq=WALL%20ST%20PROTESTS&st=cse#

Wall Street Protest Visits Washington Sq. - October 8, 2011, 7:23 pm
By AL BAKER

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/wall-street-protest-moves-to-washington-sq/?scp=5&sq=WALL%20ST%20PROTESTS&st=cse

23 Arrested Wednesday in Wall St. Protest - October 6, 2011, 10:22 am
By ANDY NEWMAN and COLIN MOYNIHAN

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/23-arrested-wednesday-in-wall-st-protest/?scp=8&sq=WALL%20ST%20PROTESTS&st=cse
Wall St. Protest Attracts Many New to This Sort of Thing
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
Roger Schwarz, left, a criminal lawyer, spoke to protesters at Zuccotti Park on Tuesday morning.
By CARA BUCKLEY
Published: October 5, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/nyregion/wall-st-protest-lures-many-new-to-this-sort-of-thing.html?scp=7&sq=WALL%20ST%20PROTESTS&st=

Seeking Energy, Unions Join Protest Against Wall Street
Seth Wenig/Associated Press
Labor unions joined Occupy Wall Street protesters on Wednesday in a rally on the steps of the state courthouse in Foley Square.
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and CARA BUCKLEY
Published: October 5, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/nyregion/major-unions-join-occupy-wall-street-protest.html?sq=WALL ST PROTESTS&st=cse&scp=6&pagewanted=all
Wall St. Protests Continue, With Arrests at Morning March - September 21, 2011, 6:35 pm
By ROB HARRIS

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/wall-st-protests-continue-with-arrests-at-morning-march/?scp=3&sq=WALL%20ST%20PROTESTS&st=cse
Wall Street Protests Continue, With at Least 6 Arrested - September 19, 2011, 12:28 pm
By COLIN MOYNIHAN

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/wall-street-protests-continue-with-at-least-5-arrested/?scp=2&sq=WALL%20ST%20PROTESTS&st=cse

Wall Street Protest Begins, With Demonstrators Blocked - September 17, 2011, 4:26 pm
By COLIN MOYNIHAN

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/wall-street-protest-begins-with-demonstrators-blocked/?scp=1&sq=WALL%20ST%20PROTESTS&st=cse

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/9/05/continuous/100000001090477/timescast.html

California Begins Moving Prison Inmates

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/us/california-begins-moving-prisoners.html?_r=1&hp

By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: October 8, 2011
 LOS ANGELES — Facing an unprecedented order from the Supreme Court to decrease its inmate population by 11,000 over the next three months and by 34,000 over the next two years, California prisons last week began to shift inmates to county jails and probation officers, starting what many believe will be a fundamental and far-reaching change in the nation’s largest corrections system.

Last spring, the Supreme Court ruled that overcrowding and poor conditions in state prisons violated inmates’ constitutional rights and, in a first, ordered a state to rapidly decrease its inmate population. Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature approved a plan that would place many more offenders in the custody of individual counties.

Under the plan, inmates who have committed nonviolent, nonserious and nonsexual offenses will be released back to the county probation system rather than to state parole officers. Those newly convicted of such crimes will be sent directly to the counties, which will decide if they should go to a local jail or to an alternative community program. And newly accused defendants may wear electronic monitoring bracelets while they await trial.

“This is the largest change in the California state system in my lifetime,” said Barry Krisberg, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has watched the state prisons for decades and testified in the Supreme Court case last year. “Given that what we had was completely broken and was the most expensive, overcrowded and least effective in America, there’s some hope that this will change it.”

The shift of prisoners to county facilities began Monday, and state officials expect to satisfy the Supreme Court’s mandate by June 2013 — at which time they must have reduced the state inmate population of 144,000, which put the prisons at 180 percent capacity, to 110,000, or 135 percent of capacity. First, though, they must reach the initial court-ordered benchmark by reducing the prison population to 133,000 by December.

In what the state calls a realignment of the criminal justice system, the plan places more responsibilities on the counties, and some local officials say they are unprepared and underfinanced to get the job done. But state officials say that keeping inmates closer to their communities will increase the chances that they can be rehabilitated, rather than in and out of state prison.

For the last several years, state parole officers would often catch criminals on technical parole violations, sending them back to prison for several weeks at a time — a practice many derided as a revolving door.

The constant influx of new and former inmates also sharply increased the cost for the state, because it must pay for a medical evaluation and several other assessments every time an inmate enters the system.

Matthew Cate, the secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the state hoped that the counties would concentrate on rehabilitating prisoners and helping them reintegrate into the community, something the state system was never able to do. Figures show that nearly 70 percent of inmates in California prisons end up there again.

“The catch-and-release way we had before was not working — I don’t know how anyone could disagree with that,” Mr. Cate said. “The only alternative we had was just a massive release of people from prison. Nobody seemed to want to talk about that.”

But some city and county officials say that the changes are likely to overwhelm local law enforcement agencies and that the state has not given them enough time or money to prepare. Last week, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and the city’s police chief, Charlie Beck, said they would have to reassign 150 police officers to help monitor the former inmates.

Sheriff Scott R. Jones of Sacramento County has been one of the most outspoken critics of the plan, saying it is likely to drive up crime. He called it a “collision course with disaster,” because there is not enough money for the counties.

“To do all the things that they are asking everyone to do will cost an enormous amount of money, and we don’t have it,” Sheriff Jones said. “If this doesn’t work, it’s not like we get to go back and try again — we’re going to be stuck with the consequences.”

Sheriff Jones said the state might have been better off simply releasing 10,000 inmates, so it could use the extra time to figure out how to get more money or create a more comprehensive system for counties. “It’s not like we’re ready, because we’re not, and it’s not like we know what is best, because we don’t,” he added. “The only thing that is driving this is a court demand.”

But Mr. Cate dismissed the criticisms, saying the state had no other choice and had been coordinating plans for months.

“Everyone just wants to inoculate themselves from any kind of crime increase and blame it on realignment,” Mr. Cate said. “This is some massive change. It’s going to be subtle and happen over time.”

Counties across the state have been working “feverishly” to figure out their plans to handle the new responsibilities, said Sheriff Mark Pazin of Merced County, president of the California State Sheriffs’ Association.

“It’s a little tiring that we’re finally at the point where we have to do something and people start to react by just hitting the panic button,” Sheriff Pazin said.

Studies show that reduced sentences do not cause drastic increases in crime, he said, and many counties are working on alternative programs. “We need to be concentrating on what works best and how we can actually turn things around,” he said.

Sheriff Pazin said Mr. Brown had reassured him that the state would consider changing the way money is allocated to individual counties. Officials hope that five years from now, they will be able to determine which counties have been most effective at reducing the recidivism rate.

But several advocates for prisoners say they worry that the state is not doing enough to ensure that the counties will consider alternatives to jail, and several counties have said they will deal with the influx simply by adding more beds to their jails. Many of the county jails across the state are already overcrowded, and the Los Angeles County jails are being investigated by the F.B.I. over accusations of inmate abuse by deputies.

“There are no kind of guiding principles or oversight or monitoring,” said Donald Specter, the director of the Prison Law Office, which argued for the prisoners in the Supreme Court case. “I think there will be extreme variations, where some counties just will use the money to lock them up with no support and others who really try to figure out real solutions.”

Any violent crime committed by one of the former inmates is likely to grab headlines, but it will be years before the state can measure the impact of the change.

“We don’t have a lot of options,” Mr. Cate said. “The question years from now will really be: Did we avoid a disaster?”